How to Create an Online Shopping App Like Flipkart?

Today we are facing revolutionary changes in our shopping patterns. We tend to stay home and do shopping on the internet, rather than going out to different shops for the variety of items. Judging by marketing research, 40% of worldwide internet users have bought products online. The online shopping boom is already upon us.

Due to the technological development, people are able to shop from anywhere they are by just having their phones in hands and an internet connection. And since such shopping is a truly convenient thing to do, as well as it’s a huge time and money saving process, more and more people are switching to the online shopping instead of the traditional style.

Therefore, those who were interested in making online shopping websites, now have all the reasons to switch their focus to the mobile application development. For instance, an app like Flipkart has become impressively popular over the last few years and inspired developers from around the world to achieve the same success.

If you are serious about developing an outstanding eCommerce app, then this article will help you. Now let’s see what it takes to build an online shopping app, how to design it and any costs.

Where to start

As we have already mentioned above; these days, online shopping is gaining popularity around the globe. Therefore more new apps are constantly appearing on the market. Moreover, the most popular applications also make competition pretty tough. To ease your way into this industry and help you do better once you had started, we’ve prepared an exercise for you. Stop reading and ask yourself these questions:

Why do people prefer online shopping over traditional methods?

Who are your main competitors?

What do you need to know to become the best among them?

The answer to the first question is – Convenience. People prefer online shopping because of it is easy. Therefore, what you need to do if you want to offer online shopping services, is to provide outstanding convenience for the users. For example, you should start by setting your priorities to the app development over the website. These days people tend to do everything by using just their phones. Since they are always with us and due to the sizes of modern phones’ screens, they become great substitutes for laptops.

Moreover, app development is both less time and money consuming than web application development. The sooner your app will get to the store, the sooner you’ll reach out to first users. This way you’ll have more time for promotion. By the way – you’ll get initial feedback for the app right away after the first release – so you’ll know the right way to improve it and the time to create a website if it’s necessary.

Second, by making an online shop, you are entering a very prosperous but extremely competitive business. Analyzing the demand and supply at the market, along with the exploring businesses of your competitors is a necessity for each market – including the mobile app industry as well. You should truly be the best in what you do if you are to become a success story.

Third, get rid of any misconceptions you might have about shopping apps. From the cost of building an online shopping app to which companies are offering services to create e-commerce applications; and which company is the best choice for you to hire and cooperate with.

Exploration on the entire topic seems to be time consuming. But we’ve already allocated a few tips on the custom shopping app development: they should help you to decide whether to make an online shopping app for iOS, for Android and more. By the end of this post, you will know the most essential aspects for eCommerce app development so that you can drive real profitable results for your project in the future.

Tips for the shopping app development

So what can make startups become as successful as, let’s say, Flipkart – or other major online shopping applications we have these days? It is important to look up at the companies that have already succeeded. There are plenty of tricks you can learn from them to apply to your future product and come up with the app that would be able to compete in the global market.

Tip number one. You should, or at least, you are highly recommended, to start with deciding what to sell. What type of goods or services are you interested in providing to the masses? By establishing clear benchmarks in the area of your business interests, you will ease your way of adaptation in the market. Most of the major online shops today had started their business with limited range of goods. For instance, Amazon and later, Flipkart both started with selling only books.

In addition, it will help you to create a clear vision of your target market. So step number one is to choose the categories of goods you want to offer with your app. Later on, you might expand the range of goods you offer and the number of suppliers. But it is better to start small.

Tip number two. You should know your target and your competitors. In other words, if you want to be the biggest fish in the sea, you should know who you are swimming with. Explore the pool and its inhabitants. Make your observation. Never forget about the competition. After completing step one, it will be much easier to conduct research about other online shops offering same types – or close to – the goods you have.

You can start with reading reviews and comments left for rating different iPhone or Android apps. This way you might learn what the issues are that their users have with the apps, and so, which mistakes you can avoid. Thus, you get the chance to make the better product than your competitors had made.

Think about where and how your audience is spending their time and how you can get them to discover your store. Base your decision of whether to make an online shopping app for iOS or to create a shopping app for Android by looking at geographical aspects (e.g. Android is the most popular in China, iOS is the best for USA), considering the price ranges of the goods you want to sell (e.g. iOS users are more solvent than Android users).

You need a unique product that would differ from the others in a good way. Surely, it might be quite hard to do when you are outside of the market, but there are lots of help offered for business owners from business analysis specialists of app development companies.

Tip number three. So after you have explored the market, defined your target audience and set the rules and limits, you can move onto the process of actually creating the app. The number one criteria here is to make an application as intuitive as it’s possible.

People who have just opened your app should feel like they have already been there They should feel like they know what to do next, otherwise, they would leave the app in the next few seconds. Therefore, a user-friendly interface is your number one priority when it comes to the app design stage.

Tip number four. This brings us to the next tip – go minimalistic. Try not to overwhelm users with a number of features you come up with. It is better to impress them with the quality of your product, rather than with its complexity.

Pay more attention to the essential features; such as login options or product search, than creating too many complimentary features. Make all the routine but necessary operations easy and fast.

Allow users to sign in by using social media or, actually, allow people first explore your app without registering at all.

Use indexing in a search: make searching for items as fast as possible by guessing what your users are looking for and offering them some options by using just the first few letters typed in a search box.

Keep payment system fast and simple. Offer the users several of the most popular systems of payment and don’t make them fill in too many forms with personal information.

Create a “basket” so they could collect the items they want to purchase and keep the history of their searches for each subscriber. That will save time for customers and benefit your income.

Tip number five. Even though all the previous points were truly essential for the success of your app, there is one more feature that will make your app stand out over the rest of the similar products. Our advice here is to do everything it takes to make your users feel welcomed. It means that you need to build a sort of personal relations with your customers, or among your customers. Provide outstanding customer support so that your customers will feel that you are not just taking their money, but you actually care about them.

Make your app a place users want to return to. After you have released your app, you might start working on its new features for the next updates. For instance, keep in mind that people love when they have the freedom to express their opinions. Allow them to do that. Collect feedback on the first version of your app, fix the main issues and start working on improvements. Add such features as personal profiles, comments section and the possibility to leave reviews and make ratings for the products. It will definitely benefit your business.

To conclude

So that was a short guide into the matter of how to develop a shopping app like Flipkart or any other successful e-Commerce app.

If you feel like you are ready to turn your ideas into reality, don’t waste your time and start your research on the shopping app development cost. Look at different companies that offer UX/UI design services and get in contact with a few you feel most attracted to.

If you take our advice and helpful tips into consideration, you will find that your results – even if you’re on a budget – can be more rewarding than if you had a large capital investment for funding. In any eventuality, don’t forget what you have learned here to help your eCommerce mobile app reach out to your future customers.